Why Does Iran Keep Taking American Hostages?

In April, American citizen and former Marine Amir Hekmati made a special plea to congressional leaders from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where he is incarcerated on trumped-up espionage charges. The United States, he said, needs to ensure that Iran faces “serious consequences” for its “serial hostage-taking,” before it claims another victim.

Hekmati was seized on his first trip to Iran. Born in Flagstaff, Arizona to parents who left Iran in 1979, Hekmati wanted to meet his extended family and visit his ailing grandmother. At the time, Iran was negotiating the release of American hikers Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, who were taken in 2009. When then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced in September 2011 that the hikers would be released in a “humanitarian gesture,” the regime had already replaced that particular chess piece with Hekmati. 

… 

Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told me that he believes Levinson has been held by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in a kidnapping the regime didn’t order, but has used to its advantage. “Whoever is in opposition is engaged in hostage-taking,” Alfoneh said.

Iran opportunistically seizes American targets who may or may not be of value at a particular point in time. It hopes to use them as a bargaining chip or to send a message. If necessary, they can be saved for a moment when Tehran wants extra diplomatic leverage.

These are time-honored tactics. “There’s absolutely nothing new about hostage-taking in Iran,” Ali Alfoneh said.

“It’s a perfectly normal procedure and political practice in the Islamic Republic. That has been the case since the first day of the revolution and continues until today. Usually, the legal government is opposed to hostage-taking as it will be facing the protests of foreign governments. At the same time, the opposition is always actively engaged in hostage-taking. It serves their interest to show the government as weak.”

“Maximum press coverage usually sees a release of those individuals. Pressure on the Iranian government increases so much,” Alfoneh says. But without this kind of coverage, American hostages “end up rotting in prison for years and years.”

… 

Read the full article here.